Back in 2001, just after 9/11, the Economist ran a cover with the headline The Day the World Changed. It felt right at the time. But when historians come to look back at our times I wonder if, vile as it was, that will really be the event they note as the trigger for the western world changing.
回到2001年，當(dāng)時(shí)9/11恐怖襲擊剛剛過去，《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人》(Economist)雜志刊登了一個(gè)封面，標(biāo)題是"改變世界的一天"(The Day the World Changed)。當(dāng)時(shí)這樣的斷語(yǔ)讓人覺得頗為貼切。但是，盡管這一事件非常糟糕，當(dāng)歷史學(xué)家們開始回顧我們所處的時(shí)代時(shí)，我揣測(cè)他們會(huì)否真的認(rèn)為那是引發(fā)西方世界改變的事件。
Instead, if you look around you now you might wonder if it was instead the poster moment of the financial crisis – the fall of Lehman Brothers.
如果你觀察一下周圍，你現(xiàn)在可能會(huì)猜測(cè)，改變世界的事件是否是金融危機(jī)的標(biāo)志性時(shí)刻——雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)的破產(chǎn)。
After all, the crisis is clearly changing global politics as fast as it is global finance. These things are obviously complicated but you can make a case that the Arab Spring was precipitated by fast rising food prices – something you can easily blame on QE – a clear and direct result of the financial crisis.
畢竟，這場(chǎng)危機(jī)改變?nèi)蛘胃窬诛@然與其改變?nèi)蚪鹑诟窬值乃俣纫粯涌臁＿@些事情顯然是復(fù)雜的，但你可以進(jìn)行這樣的推定：迅速上漲的食品價(jià)格——你可以輕易將其歸咎于定量寬松政策——導(dǎo)致了阿拉伯之春(Arab Spring)，而定量寬松是金融危機(jī)的一個(gè)明顯而直接的結(jié)果。
The crisis has also precipitated the sovereign debt disasters across Europe and is obviously responsible for the increasingly common protests they come with. It can be blamed for China's spat with Japan: would China's leaders be any more bothered about the Senkaku islands than usual if they weren't keen to shift attention from their own export slowdown?
這場(chǎng)危機(jī)還導(dǎo)致了歐洲的主權(quán)債務(wù)危機(jī)，并顯然要對(duì)隨之而來(lái)的日益普遍的*負(fù)責(zé)。就連中日爭(zhēng)端也可以歸咎于金融危機(jī)：如果中國(guó)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人不是因?yàn)槌隹诜啪彾Ｍ麑⒆⒁饬σ_的話，他們對(duì)于尖閣諸島（Senkaku，中國(guó)稱之為"釣魚島及其附屬島嶼"）的操心程度會(huì)否超出尋常水平？
It is also responsible in part for various independence movements. Would Scotland have elected the Scottish National Party if its voters hadn't perceived Labour as being financially incompetent? And would Catalonia be making a bid to take over tax raising powers from Madrid without Spain's economic crisis?
這場(chǎng)危機(jī)在一定程度上解釋了各種各樣的獨(dú)立運(yùn)動(dòng)出現(xiàn)的原因。如果不是蘇格蘭選民認(rèn)為工黨(Labour)金融無(wú)能，那么蘇格蘭民族黨(Scottish National Party)還會(huì)在選舉中勝出嗎？如果沒有西班牙的經(jīng)濟(jì)危機(jī)，加泰羅尼亞還會(huì)要求接手馬德里在該區(qū)的征稅權(quán)力嗎？
Then of course there is QE itself. Printing money for too long and in too great a volume is a bad idea for many reasons, but one is that printing money eventually kills faith in money. The legendary investor Sir John Templeton liked to point out that abusing weights and measures was a pretty fast way for a government to lose the trust of an electorate. And what is QE, something that changes the value of the dollar, pound and euro in your pocket, if it is not an abuse of a measure?
當(dāng)然，接下來(lái)還有定量寬松本身。太長(zhǎng)時(shí)間和太大數(shù)額的印鈔從很多方面來(lái)講都是一個(gè)糟糕的想法，但其中一點(diǎn)是，印鈔最終會(huì)扼殺人們對(duì)金錢的信任。有傳奇色彩的投資者約翰錠源罦爵士(Sir John Templeton)喜歡指出，濫用度量衡是政府失去選民信任的一條捷徑。改變你口袋里美元、英鎊和歐元價(jià)值的定量寬松如果不是濫用度量衡的話，又是什么呢？
You could also blame the crisis for the fact that the size of western governments is more likely to increase than decrease from here. Why? Inequality.
你還可以將這一事實(shí)歸咎于這場(chǎng)危機(jī)：西方國(guó)家政府的規(guī)模更有可能從現(xiàn)在的水平擴(kuò)大，而非縮小。為什么？不平等。
You can make a (pretty good) argument to say that rising inequality, in the form of falling real wages for the 99 per cent, left consumers with no power to consume unless they borrowed to do so – another big contributory factor in the financial crisis. But whether that is true or not doesn't really matter. Inequality has become a political big deal across the West and that means politicians of all colours, even as they fail to deal with their budget deficits, are still trying to find new ways to redistribute.
你可以提出（非常充分）的理由，稱日益加重的不平等（99%的人實(shí)際薪資下滑）讓消費(fèi)者沒有能力消費(fèi)，除非他們借款（這是引發(fā)金融危機(jī)的另一個(gè)重要因素）。但這點(diǎn)是否屬實(shí)其實(shí)并不重要。不平等已成為西方的一件政治大事，這意味著，所有意識(shí)形態(tài)的政界人士都在尋找新的再分配方式，即便他們未能解決預(yù)算赤字問題。
This is why we have to put up with the interminable arguments about the introduction of wealth taxes here (I would remind you that in stamp duty and non index linked capital gains tax, we already have two wealth taxes); why not everyone is outraged by the Lib Dem idea that those earning over 50,000 should be forced to fund a greater share of the UK's debt repayments than they have so far; and why most of France's rich have already packed their bags for a multiyear sojourn in Monaco.
這就是為什么我們不得不忍受無(wú)休止的有關(guān)出臺(tái)財(cái)富稅的辯論（我要提醒你，印花稅和非通脹掛鉤的資本利得稅意味著，英國(guó)已有兩項(xiàng)財(cái)富稅）；為什么并非所有人都對(duì)自由民主黨(Liberal Democrats)提出的建議感到憤怒，該黨提出，應(yīng)迫使那些收入超過5萬(wàn)英鎊的人承擔(dān)比目前更高的英國(guó)政府償債負(fù)擔(dān)；為什么多數(shù)法國(guó)富人已收拾好行李，準(zhǔn)備在摩納哥度過多年。
My point in all this is that the crisis has not just had economic effects. It has had huge political effects too. Add all these together and you can see that levels of both misery and uncertainty across the global economy are surely at something of an extreme.
我提到這一切是為了說明，這場(chǎng)危機(jī)不僅造成了經(jīng)濟(jì)影響，還帶來(lái)了巨大的政治影響。綜合來(lái)看，你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)全球經(jīng)濟(jì)中的苦難和不確定性都肯定處于極端水平。
That doesn't necessarily matter from a purely investing point of view. The question, as Sandy Nairn and Jonathan Davis say in their new book, Templeton's Way with Money, is just "how much negativity is already being discounted in the price of shares, bonds and other financial instruments". Usually when times are as tough – and in particular as unpredictable as this – investors are compensated in the form of very low valuations and thus a strong probability of high returns in the future. Hence the idea that one should "buy when there is blood on the streets".
從單純的投資角度來(lái)看，這不一定重要。正如桑迪奈恩(Sandy Nairn)和喬納森戴維斯(Jonathan Davis)在二人的新書《Templeton's Way with Money》中所言，問題無(wú)非是"有多少負(fù)面因素已被計(jì)入股票、債券和其他金融工具的價(jià)格"。通常，在經(jīng)濟(jì)困難時(shí)期，特別是像現(xiàn)在這樣的不可預(yù)測(cè)的時(shí)期，投資者可以獲得非常低的估值，從而有很大幾率在未來(lái)獲得高回報(bào)，由此得到補(bǔ)償。因此有這樣的說法：人們應(yīng)"趁街上發(fā)生流血事件時(shí)買進(jìn)"。
But there isn't any blood. Yes, one or two markets, especially in Europe, are cheap on the basis of long-term valuations. But, thanks to a toxic mixture of QE and delusion, the US is certainly not.
然而，現(xiàn)在街上一滴"血"都沒有。沒錯(cuò)，從長(zhǎng)期估值，一兩個(gè)市場(chǎng)（特別是在歐洲）較為廉價(jià)。但由于定量寬松和錯(cuò)覺的有毒組合，美國(guó)市場(chǎng)肯定不便宜。
Strategist Andrew Smithers suggests that while US equities should be "cheap in recognition of the risks" they are instead expensive – 59 per cent overvalued on Smithers' preferred measures. These are the cyclically adjusted p/e ratio, which looks at profits over a ten-year period, and Tobin's Q, which compares share prices to the replacement value of assets. How long can that last?
策略師安德魯史密瑟斯(Andrew Smithers)提出，盡管"考慮到風(fēng)險(xiǎn)"美國(guó)股市應(yīng)變得"廉價(jià)"，但它們卻很昂貴，根據(jù)史密瑟斯青睞的衡量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，美國(guó)股市被高估59%。這些衡量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)包括經(jīng)過周期調(diào)整的市盈率（考慮10年期間的利潤(rùn)）和托賓Q比率(Tobin's Q，比較股價(jià)與資產(chǎn)重置價(jià)值)。這能持續(xù)多久？
Société Générale's Albert Edwards thinks not very long. His latest note suggested that everyone should slash their equity exposure to the bone, something he last suggested back in May 2008, on the basis that while QE might well provide the money to keep asset prices up for a while, investors will eventually lose faith and accept that Ben Bernanke's "ruinous" policies will one day or another "destroy the world". Something to bear in mind if you think your money might be safer in the US than Europe.
法國(guó)興業(yè)銀行(Société Générale)的艾伯特ㄠ德華斯(Albert Edwards)認(rèn)為時(shí)間不會(huì)很長(zhǎng)。他在最新簡(jiǎn)報(bào)中提出，所有人都應(yīng)大幅削減股票投資（他上一次這樣說是在2008年5月），理由是，盡管定量寬松很可能產(chǎn)生資金洪流，在一段時(shí)間內(nèi)保持資產(chǎn)價(jià)格高企，但投資者最終將失去信心，意識(shí)到本伯南克(Ben Bernanke)的"毀滅性"政策終有一天會(huì)"毀滅世界"。如果你認(rèn)為，你的錢在美國(guó)可能比在歐洲更安全的話，那么請(qǐng)記住這點(diǎn)吧。